The Only Part

Prompts: Hopeless & Knife

It is hopeless to try, but she still does.
For years she has known there is no resisting the new ruler with his rules and regime and requirements. His power is too strong and they are too weak. His magic is overwhelming and his intelligence is incomparable. He took over their government in days when she was a teenager and yet he hasn’t aged a day since. He is impossible and incredible and terrifying and she is lucky to have his favor.
Mihiro was seventeen when the General came to power on Visor and instituted his new laws and regulations. She was drafted to the army almost instantly once he was settled, and in the fifteen years since, she built herself into one of the best soldiers in the army.
At thirty-two, she is one of the General’s guards and her daughter is the best in her class at school. She is trusted and trained and knows this is a great honor.
And then she is assigned to guard the General’s children.
One would think the sons and daughters of such a powerful leader would be well-bred, wealthy, and probable future leaders, but the General’s children are so withdrawn and quiet. She has only seen the youngest a handful of times, always accompanied by her mother and oldest brother, but the girl is strangely silent for a two-year-old. The oldest boy is five and is similarly close to his mother. The other boy is three and Mihiro thinks he is the sweetest child she has ever seen with his big dark eyes and round face.
She sees the eldest child the most, however, and this is where her faith in the General shakes. Jatrina Antalia, six years old, is being trained to be an assassin.

by Lilliana Casper

From what the other guards tell her when she is assigned to the palace, Jatrina has been training for almost a year. In the six months since then, Mihiro has seen what this “training” entails. If this girl continues to be trained in this way, she fears the General will have created a monster.
She has learned that the people she guards are not normal humans. They heal too quickly and the General and his wife do not age. The healing she sees up close as the General slices dark lines down his daughter’s arms and they are only faint scars in a week. Or when he breaks every finger in her right hand and she can use it perfectly just days later. Or when the guards are sent out of the room while he beats her and yet she is training again the next day with barely a wince of pain.
It amazes her how much the girl can withstand. She trains almost nonstop, hurling knives and spinning daggers, flipping and jumping and twisting. Her father isn't the only one who trains her. Sometimes there are others with different skills, like the woman who teaches her to stretch and bend like wire or the man who teaches her to use a gun.
For six months, Mihiro watches her train and fail and get back up. She watches her trip and then run the sequence until she is perfect. She watches her stab herself in the hand and wrap a bandage around it. She watches as the girl's mother sneers at her and calls her a monster. She watches the father slap her across the face.

She watches as the girl's hair grows longer. When Mihiro met her, the girl's hair was at the middle of her neck and now it is past her shoulders. It reminds her of when she was young and her mother stroked her head and told her she should pull it back.
If you learn to braid your hair and keep it out of the way, you can keep it looking this beautiful, her mother said. I'll show you.And she learned, slowly but steadily, how to twist the strands of hair over each other and turn them into a long rope that hangs down her back or pins easily onto her head.
Jatrina's hair is so much prettier than hers, but already Mihiro can see the way it gets in her eyes and mouth when she fights. The problem is that no one will show her how to take care of it. Her mother hates her and her father couldn't care less.
That is the day she tries. Even though she knows it is hopeless, though she knows it could destroy her, she tries to help.
The General looks at his daughter's hair and scoffs. "It's getting in the way," he says. "Figure something out, or I'll cut it off. You don't need to look pretty as an assassin."
He stalks out of the room, leaving Mihiro with the girl staring down at her weapon and wondering what to do. Mihiro is the only one on duty in here now. The others are outside or patrolling the halls. No one is around to see.
Mihiro stares at the girl as she begins to go through her stances again. She glances at the closed door. The General must be halfway across the palace by now. She looks back at the girl and nearly chokes. Instead of the General's daughter, she sees hers and then herself, both at the same age, learning how to braid hair.

She decides.
"Girl," she says abruptly. "Jatrina. Look over here." The girl stills and turns to her. Mihiro notices the absence of flinching with a feeling of discomfort. Jatrina cocks her head slightly, a question in her eyes.
Mihiro gestures quickly with her hand. "Look at my hair," she says and turns so the girl can see her head. "Do you see the way I have it pulled back? Watch." She quickly undoes her braid and combs her fingers roughly through it. "Separate it into three. Then cross them over each other. Side to middle, other side to middle, first side to middle, second side to middle. Repeat until the strands get too short to use."
Mihiro pulls her braid off to the side to finish it and looks Jatrina in the eyes. "Then you tie it with something. An elastic like this one—“ she shows the one she pulled from her braid a moment ago “—is the easiest to use, but harder to get. A ribbon or string is harder to use but easier to find.”
Jatrina nods slowly, her eyes fixed on Mihiro's fingers. She sets the knife down and pulls her hair back from her face, carefully separating it into three sections.
"Try to make sure they're the same size, or at least close to it. Your braid will be more even then, and longer too." Mihiro watches the girl attempt to copy her with uncertain fingers. "No, no, look here again." She demonstrates the braid again and then nods to the girl. "Try again. You can do it."

by Lilliana Casper

This time, Jatrina's fingers are steadier. Her braiding is uneven and sloppy, but no different than Mihiro's when she was first starting. She's a quick learner.
The girl reaches the end of her hair and pauses, then looks back at Mihiro, who shows her the elastic. Jatrina narrows her eyes and holds out a hand. Before Mihiro can hand it to her and find something else to use, darkness begins to rise from the ground and hover over her palm. The shadows darken and solidify until they form a thin black band exactly like Mihiro's elastic. The girl frowns at it and then wraps it around her braid gracelessly.
Mihiro feels herself smile when she sees the braid. "That's good," she says. "If you practice a lot, you can get better. You can learn how to tie it up or wrap it around your head. You can leave it down and learn to fight with it, how to maneuver with it so that no one catches it. You can braid multiple sections of hair and style it. If you learn how to use this skill, your father won't cut it. You can have a part of yourself that he won't touch."
Jatrina gazes at her, and for a moment Mihiro thinks the girl's eyes are glassy, as if she is about to cry. In her entire time here, she has never seen the girl cry, not even when she was punished or when her mother yelled at her. She doesn't cry now either. Instead, she picks up her knife and goes back to her stances, moving her head just a little bit more to get a feel for her new hairstyle.
Mihiro's shift ends an hour later. When she sees the General later that night, he frowns at her hair. Fear pools in her stomach. He's noticed.
When Mihiro first arrived, she was told multiple times never to engage with the General's children in a personal way. She was to be an emotionless figure, just part of the background, and she would never intervene or attempt to assist the children in any way. Kindness would not be tolerated.
She waits in terror all night for the General to kill her or do something even worse. But morning comes and nothing happens. When she is assigned to guard the girl in the afternoon, the General is present. He gives her no notice and simply watches his daughter practice. Jatrina's eyes flick to her, but she doesn't react.
For the next several weeks, Mihiro does nothing. She sees that the girl's braids are getting better, but makes no comment. Even when the General leaves her alone with his daughter, she only softens her gaze slightly and says nothing. But she notices that Jatrina relaxes in her presence and that her posture is less wary. The girl trusts her already from just that one act and it makes Mihiro's heart twist.

by Lilliana Casper

She wonders if the General is having her watched after realizing she taught Jatrina to do her hair. He probably knows Jatrina learning to braid is useful and is choosing to let this one action go. If she does anything more, she could be in real danger.
The best thing to do would be nothing. Leave Jatrina to her father's cruelty and her mother's apathy. Leave her alone, and save herself.
But she can't. Instead, she tries one more time.
It has been two months since she taught Jatrina to braid. Today, she is alone with the girl again. Her wariness has faded somewhat. She no longer fears that spies are watching her every move.

"Girl," she whispers. Jatrina perks up instantly, looking at her with wide black eyes. "This is called a bun."
She pulled her hair out and started twisting it. "There are several ways to make a bun. This is the simplest. You twist your hair and wrap it around itself, then fasten it. Make sure it's close to your head

when you do so, or it falls out. Using hairpins is helpful too, that keeps it secure."
Jatrina tries it, managing to fasten it to the back of her head. She frowns, probably because it feels loose.
"Once you perfect a simple bun, you can place it anywhere on your head. The top, the side, the back, anywhere with enough hair. You can even do multiple small ones." Mihiro demonstrates by pulling her hair to the top of her head and wrapping it up. "It looks best when it's centered perfectly, okay?"
"Okay," Jatrina says. Mihiro stares at her. The girl has never spoken to her before. Her voice is soft and childish, but Mihiro detects a maturity far beyond a six-year-old's.

The girl tries the hairstyle again, this time higher. She looks adorable with it pulled up on top of her head, even when she messes it up with the elastic.
Mihiro smiles at her. "Good job."
Jatrina tilts her head. "Why are you teaching me?" she asks.
Mihiro pauses. "Because I want to," she answers. "I want to help you be better."
The girl blinks as if surprised, just as the door slams open and the General storms in.
Mihiro straightens up instantly, gaze landing on the wall in front of her, but the General has already seen. His eyebrows fall over his eyes. Without a word, a knife is in his hand and sliding across her throat.

by Lilliana Casper

Mihiro falls to her knees, choking on blood. Her vision splinters, dotted with black. Her eyes land on Jatrina, who stands behind her father with a look of horror. The girl's eyes turn glassy and then a mask descends over her face, wiping away all trace of emotion.
Her vision fades entirely as her life bleeds out. The last thing she hears is the General's voice, but she can't bring herself to feel anything, even when the last words he says are: "Find her daughter and draft her for parental treason. If she cannot serve, the girl will."
Mihiro can no longer care, because she can no longer know. She dies alone, and the only person disturbed by her death is the girl she reached out to only twice, who watched her die with cold eyes.
She doesn't see her daughter drafted into the army at the age of eleven. She doesn't see her daughter grow to hate her mother for betraying the General and causing her to be drafted. She doesn't see the planet she grew up on turn into a military camp, doesn't see the army she joined begin to conquer nearby planets, doesn't see the people she loved die one by one as the years pass.
She doesn't see the girl she taught to do her hair kill thousands, becoming a monster with blood on her hands and pain in her heart and hatred in her eyes, doesn't see her lose the only friends she gained, doesn't see her sacrifice and suffer and struggle just to keep those three safe. She doesn't see that girl break free, join a new group, make new friends, and be forgiven. She doesn't see the girl grow and change and learn and become a teacher herself.
If Mihiro Nahar could see the girl she taught to braid teach another girl how to fight with one, she would smile. If she could see the girl pause when asked how she learned to do her hair before answering, "The only person who tried to help," she would know that despite the consequences, it was never hopeless to try.
Because she is the only reason that girl has any part of her left that is hers alone.